quiet things
by PerfectPerception
Summary: Hearts. They don't lie, they just quiver in fear. BeckCat


****Really bummed I posted this yesterday but apparently the story's ID wasn't recognized so you couldn't even read it... -_-** Anyway, thanks in advance for reading and feedback would be amazing, although, not necessary! Also, I claim no ownership of these characters, summary is taken from Mayday Parade's song** Just Say You're Not Into It **and** **italicized lyrics found in the beginning and end of the story are from This Providence's song **Chasing the Wind**. I hope you enjoy!**

...  
><em>If I can't have you, darling<em>

He once told her she reminds him of sunshine and blindingly pretty things.

But Beck's shallow and, at first, he strays away from Cat. Because she's _different_ and she has the tendency to bring a great deal of run-on sentences that lead nowhere and nonsense stories that have no endings to his life that had been remotely affliction-free until their introduction. Besides, he prefers dark things, dark hair, and dark makeup and Jade, well, Jade's just absolutely gorgeous.

Cat would agree.

Because, despite what Jade may say, Cat's the closest thing to a best friend for her - her unrelated sister, and Cat's thankful Jade's intimidating demeanor lessons and fades to vulnerability when they privately talk about their homework, clothes, music, and anything else Jade's interested in, and they don't _like_ the same type of boys because Cat is an optimist with a delicate face and Jade is a brunette bombshell who holds a dark, alluring quality to her vixen appearance. And next to her "friend", Cat is close to nothing, and without her friend, she's completely nothing.

But that's okay. Because Cat knows all too well that her friend is absolutely perfect (according to the way Beck looks at Jade), and she may never measure up, but she's learned to accept what she cannot choose. She didn't choose to break Beck's brain with her misuse of words and silly, frivolous thoughts while he broke her heart with his aloof, smooth exterior that never swayed nor bent to her. She didn't choose Jade to be so stunning and just… everything Beck could ever ask for. She didn't choose to be second best - which, in this case, is simply last place.

...

To Beck, Jade is perfect. She's become his best friend, his _soul mate_, and besides, Cat's too silly and too immature to understand the fine, thin and wispy layers which form together to create love. And friends don't take away each other's crushes.

That is, until friends gradually drift apart from one another and the distance between them becomes so wide and deep, they can no longer try to pretend they're good people and they become the terrible monsters they swore off years before.

[_And friends that aren't friends anymore learn to forget and forget what it is to remember._]

Suddenly, Cat and Jade aren't best friends anymore; they can barely tell what the other is thinking behind clouded eyes, their ideas conflict against one another, and Jade becomes introverted and even icier than before while Cat pretends to remain oblivious to Jade and Beck's blooming relationship not because she really can't see it, but because she's afraid of what she'll do if she _does_.

...

Fingers intertwined and feelings threaded, Beck and Jade manage to cut a line right down Cat's pride. And the rest of her falls to pieces, respectively. There's a void - make that two - to be filled and she finds it hard to replace what they took away; which is a bit puzzling, in a sense.

She knows she misses Jade terribly because Jade was her friend but Beck… what was Beck, again?

Cat feels her stomach turn and twist and jump around like a tremendous ugly monster when she thinks: _perfect_.

But Cat isn't in love with Beck, because, quite honestly and shamefully, she doesn't know what real love is. But she thinks what she feels for Beck is close. Real close.

It's not some silly little crush anymore; something so tiny and insignificant it can easily be discarded. No. It's stronger than that. It's heavier. And its weighing all of Cat Valentine's pretty happiness down and crushing what's left of her heart.

..._  
><em>

Tori, lovely, pretty Tori, tries to pick up what's left. Tori replaces Jade, eventually, (even though Jade wasn't that difficult to replace in the first place) and Cat doesn't have that same lump in the base of her throat anymore when she sits and eats lunch with her friends. She doesn't mind the way Robbie looks at her either, because she understands and feels the same quiet lingering urge of growing hopelessness and obsession Robbie harbors for her. Andre is handsome, she thinks to herself, not as handsome as Beck, but he's got a nice soul to him. A soul he can maybe share with Jade, since she always claims she has none.

Cat blinks in confusion and frowns while Beck glances sideways as his callous girlfriend, slightly impartial to Jade's unusual, but relatively expected, offhanded comments.

"But," the redhead's lip glossed over with glistening pink lipstick trembles, "everyone needs a soul, right?"

"Not me," hisses Jade lowly. "Not when I could have the misfortune of inheriting an annoying, squeaky one like yours."

"What's that supposed to mean?" cries the redhead.

Beck quickly cuts in, slices the heavy, ugly words that nearly fall from the tip of the dark brunette's tongue, and answers gently, "you're unique, Cat. And definitely not annoying or squeaky, per say, you're more bright and cheery. Which is good. Just not good for Jade, I suppose."

Tori rolls her eyes and squeezes Cat's hand in comfort under their lunch table. Cat smiles nonetheless and says in a high octave, "oh, okay!"

Tori wants to glare at the dark queen, but can't. Because then, that would give everything away, especially with Beck's calculating eyes trailing after her and her friend.

...

Beck finds Cat in her house one day, on a sunny afternoon, and her red hair is even more vibrant than before. He always does this. Always finds her, always. Even when she closes her eyes and walks in complete darkness, wanders aimlessly outside of her house or their school, and walks and walks until her feet can't carry her anymore.

This time, thankfully, he doesn't have to gingerly guide or drive her back home, and instead climbs inside her open window after scaling the side of her brick house, and she squeals in surprise at his emerging form.

He looks tired. There's creases across his forehead and she stops video chatting with Robbie to ask her dear friend what was wrong.

He says "nothing" and smiles at her and she mirrors it, because she can't do much else, and giggles when he asks why she's been giving Robbie _of all people_ the time of day lately. She shrugs, tells him Robbie's interesting, rather peculiar like she herself is, and strange people, she's heard, have to stick together.

Beck tells her he's strange too, in a way. He tells her he likes wearing different colored socks, and he doesn't like houses, but prefers his moving RV, and that he names stars after his friends while he sips on wine at night. Sometimes with Jade, sometimes without.

"You drink wine?" she gasps. "But that's bad!"

He chuckles and says it's perfectly acceptable in other places. Far off places. Like France, Germany, London, and everywhere else that isn't here. Here, where he wishes so hard and so long for things that never happen to him.

She then questions what it tastes like. That glittering, smooth liquid that never once brushed upon her lips. He kisses her that moment, when they're seventeen and a half, and she tastes it.

Beck's drunk.

...

Secrets lace themselves together now. One after the other. They're pretty because they're so forbidden, but they taste bitter; they make you purse your lips in displeasure and have you scraping their taste off your tongue with your teeth.

Cat doesn't smile with her teeth anymore. She still giggles, and talks, and sings, but she doesn't smile with her teeth.

She still tastes wine, on occasion. And she knows what it does. It stains. And her perfect, white teeth are in danger; and she can't let anyone, especially Jade, see her less than perfect.

She bats Beck's wandering hand off one night, and looks like she's about to cry, with her lip quivering nervously, and he squints at her, his vision coming in and out of focus, and he asks, "why?"

Why. Why. Why.

"Why Kitty Kat?"

"Because!" she claims desperately. "Drinking is bad for you! And so is cheating! And Jade loves you, and I don't even know what love is. My brother does though. Once, while he was traveling on a plane, he met a girl in first class. Only, his seat was in the other part of the plane. But she was so pretty, he said -"

"I think you're pretty," he hums into her ear next.

She pushes him away, because his hands are wandering again. This time, up her thighs.

...

After that night, every thing appears to quiet down between them. Beck no longer comes looking for Cat, and Cat stops wandering around when she realizes she only wanders herself into unfortunate, grim places.

But so suddenly and so softly, life crumbles before them. And when Beck breaks it off with Jade only two years, six months, seven days, and three minutes down the road, Cat sees a light silhouette of familiar heartbreak and loneliness passing across the dark queen's eyes. Cat thinks she understands what the hollow girl feels but can't be too sure and shuts her mouth instead.

She thinks she should feel somewhat happy, somewhat _excited_ because here's her chance. Here's her chance to have that happy ending that she's always wanted but but but -

_Cat doesn't deserve happy endings_. If she did, she thinks silently to herself in the quietness of her room, she'd have Beck _first_. Not second. Because anything but first place is losing.

She avoids Beck, falls to the wayside, and watches as Tori unintentionally inches her glittering self toward the beautiful boy instead.

(And maybe, she sort of finds herself communicating more with Jade now. Texts, calls, webcam; anything. And night after night, she watches as tears so light and pristine fall from the dark girl's eyes. Her stomach hurts at the broken sight, but it hurts a little less when Jade, so weak and so defeated, keeps thanking her time and time again.)

...

_But Kitty Kat, you can't run forever._

He's a bit like a cat, which is ironic if Cat thinks about it, and she giggles at the thought that her name is Cat, but she isn't smooth, cunning, or merciless as felines are when they lunge at their prey like Beck is. She's more timid, hasty, and she'd run around in circles if she was _that_ frightened; she's like the mouse.

And in this cat and mouse game, the mouse is always caught as the cat's claws sink into it.

"Can you at least pretend to be my friend, Cat?" he tries to plea with her and she smiles brightly, blinding him momentarily.

"Of course I'm your friend!" she squeaks nervously and she watches, terrified, as an uncharacteristic sneer falls over her handsome friend's face.

"Stop," he says lowly. "Cat, look, I'm sorry for everything that's happened between us. I didn't know - I mean, I..." He sighs, stopping himself and he steps on the lit cigarette held previously between his fingers. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he bits his bottom lip, clearing his throat.

She wonders if he's playing with his meal, before he devours it.

"I'm a coward, Cat, a real big coward and I should've said something to you sooner; should have _done_ something sooner about it. But I mean, I really did love Jade too," she flinches, "I just, I guess I became too comfortable with her. I don't know, I'm rambling, I'm not making much sense, but what I do know is that I made a lot of mistakes. And I'm so, so sorry."

This is when she looks him square in the eye, licking her lips that taste of bitter, washed-over wine and she smiles sadly. "It's okay," she says, not because it actually is, but because she figures it's something she ought to say. "People always deserve second chances."

"So you forgive me?" he asks, grinning handsomely.

"I think so," she says airily, although she's not quite sure if she really does.

She thinks maybe he's going to kiss her, because it seemed like the perfect opportunity, and when she can feel her own lips pursing together as his come closer, his phone rings.

_Tori_ flashes across the screen.

...

Perfect, sparkling Tori with her white-blue teeth insists to Cat that nothing's going on between her and Beck later that week, even encourages the tiny girl to give him a chance (_because if Tori can't have him, at least Jade shouldn't be with him eithe_r).

Cat giggles and brushes off her friend's underlying comments. Eventually, she dips her phone in a cup filled with water when Beck texts her for the tenth time in a row. She's tired, so awfully tired, of ignoring him, but Jade's coming over later to watch movies, and after Jade leaves, Robbie offered to take her out to dinner. For once, she isn't wasting her day thinking of a boy that wasn't hers, and still (_sort of, kind of__)_ isn't.

...

Beck still tells her she reminds him of sunshine and blindingly pretty things.

Just now, she reminds him that he shouldn't be looking at her through an empty bottle of wine.

_Don't take me home/don't let me go/__cause I should not be alone_


End file.
